Heretofore, silver paste has been mainly used for bonding a semiconductor chip and a semiconductor chip mounting support member. However, with the downsizing and high performance of semiconductor chips and the downsizing and miniaturization of support members used, some problems have arisen with the method using silver paste, such as the occurrence of failures in wire bonding caused by the extrusion of paste or inclined semiconductor chips, the difficulty in controlling the film thickness of adhesive layers and the generation of voids in adhesive layers. Also, in the field of mobile devices where further miniaturization and a higher density are required, semiconductor devices in which a plurality of semiconductor chips are laminated have been developed and mass-produced, and the above problems tend to become apparent particularly when such semiconductor devices are produced. For the above reasons, film adhesives (hereinafter referred to as an adhesive film for a semiconductor) have been recently used instead of silver paste.
Examples of methods of producing a semiconductor device using an adhesive film for a semiconductor include: (1) a piece lamination process in which an adhesive film for a semiconductor which has been cut in any size is laminated on a semiconductor chip mounting support member such as a wiring board or a semiconductor chip, and a semiconductor chip is bonded thereto by thermocompression bonding; and (2) a wafer back-side lamination process, in which an adhesive film for a semiconductor is laminated on the back side of a semiconductor wafer and the resultant is cut into pieces with a rotary blade to prepare a semiconductor chip with an adhesive film, and the chip is bonded to a semiconductor chip mounting support member or a semiconductor chip by thermocompression bonding. Recently, to simplify the production process of semiconductor devices, the wafer back-side lamination process described in the above (2) has become the mainstream.
In the wafer back-side lamination process, it has been common to cut a semiconductor wafer on which an adhesive film for a semiconductor is laminated with a rotary blade as described above. However, cutting a semiconductor wafer and an adhesive film simultaneously by a general dicing method using a rotary blade has had the problem of the occurrence of cracks (chip cracks) at the edge of the semiconductor chip after cutting or the occurrence of much flash due to the rough section of the adhesive film. The presence of such chip cracks and flash makes it easier for semiconductor chips to be broken when they are picked up. In particular, picking up semiconductor chips cut from a thinned semiconductor wafer without cracks becomes difficult.
So recently a method called stealth dicing, in which a reformed section is selectively formed in a semiconductor wafer by irradiating the semiconductor wafer with laser light and the semiconductor wafer is cut along the reformed section has been proposed as a method for dicing a semiconductor wafer (see, for example, Patent Documents 1 and 2). In this method, the semiconductor wafer in which a reformed section has been formed is attached to a dicing tape, and the semiconductor wafer is divided into a plurality of semiconductor chips along the reformed section by applying stress to the semiconductor wafer by expanding the dicing tape.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-192370    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-338467